


Sandcastles (Mycroft's Dreams)

by Bodhicitta



Series: Mycroft's Dreams [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BAMF Molly, Big Brother Mycroft, F/M, Kidlock, Mollcroft, Mycroft Being a Good Brother, Protective Mycroft, Sherlock AU, Young John Watson, Young Molly Hooper, Young Sherlock, fluff?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 03:24:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1628957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bodhicitta/pseuds/Bodhicitta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft and his little brother's friends spend a day at the beach...... a one-off.  Perhaps the beginning of a series?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sandcastles (Mycroft's Dreams)

He has fallen asleep at the Diogenes Club again.  No one dare disturb him.  For one thing, his sleep is notoriously light - he somehow remained conscious of all that was happening around him.  Furthermore, even if someone dared to insinuate that he actually was asleep, he would deny it with such sternness and menace in his voice they would retract immediately and scurry away.  

The rustling of newspaper pages, the gurgle of liquor being poured, the clink of ice cubes swirling in crystal tumblers, the sounds of men, important men, drenching their worries in booze slowly give way to the din of the ocean beating ceaselessly on the shore.... 

"Hurry up, Mycroft!" His baby brother's voice exhorted him to walk faster.  Mycroft continued to amble on at his own comfortable pace while the children raced by him, following the dog down to the water's edge.

The girl with the round brown eyes looked back over her shoulder at him as she passed him.  Her legs were already covered in sand, a light dusting of sugar on her slender, honeyed limbs.  She was always staring at him, burning him with her eyes.  Through her hair, which was forever in her face.  Over her shoulder.  Over a book jacket.  In the rear view mirror (he had just received his learner's permit and you have permission to drive the rental just the one mile to the beach and no more and then come back straight away after the kids burn off some of that energy, thank you, son).

He couldn't tell if the girl liked him or hated him.  It always seemed to fall between those extremes with girls.  With everyone.  Even his brothers.

The younger children tumble over each other, their sunburned legs flashing in the bright sunlight.  Will's glossy brown curls bounce wildly in the breeze.  They will be quite disorganized by the end of the day. Time was he would have dragged a brush through those unruly locks, and Willy ( _My Sweet Wills, My Willubub, My Wubby_ ) would have succumbed to the soothing strokes.  Now, the boy would just jerk his head away.

When they reach a relatively flat spot on the strand, Willy dumps the equipment out.  The children set about right away building things in the sand.  Mycroft notes with some measure of pride that Sherlock did bring the supplies _he_ had suggested - muffin tins; straws for turrets; a dog dish for moulding battlements; tulle stolen from mother's sewing box to reinforce the strength of walls; strips of fabric for flags; chopsticks for fences, columns, guard rails....

Will is building a pirate boat.  The pretty girl with the very large eyes helps him, collecting water from the ocean, handing him tools like an operating room nurse.  The sunlight bleeds through her hair, luscious brown ribbons flowing out behind her slender form.  Will can't see how much she adores him.  Maybe he sees and just doesn't care.  Mycroft sighs inwardly and turns to look at the water.

John is skipping seashells and wonders what is across the wide ocean.  Suddenly, Mycroft looks sharply to his left. A breeze is coming from the east.  Something to be aware of, to think about.  

He turns back to his baby brother.  The pirate boat is built on a precarious foundation.  "Willy, if you build it like that, the tide will wipe it away almost immediately."

"Shut up," the boy grunts.  "I can do it myself.  And call me Sherlock!"

Mycroft pretends not to be stung by his brother's rejection.  It has been years since he could give advice on how to build a toothpick bridge that would hold 100 pounds (arches), or how to get the dog to sit still for five straight minutes (peanut butter).  More years since he cuddled the soft little boy in his arms, tickled him under his chin, felt those trusting blue eyes pierce him straight through.  Those days would never return, he surmised.  Still...he could watch out for him.  Make sure he didn't get into too much disarray.

Molly has abandoned the pirate ship and is building an animal hospital populated by seashells and mollusks and a crab that refuses to stay.  John has found another group of children, all girls, all blond, all rosy-cheeked and smiling and lovely.  They are seated in a circle, sharing stories from the summer that is almost at its end.

When John wanders back, he asks where is Mycroft's sandcastle.

"Mycroft is not interested in building anything cool," Sherlock says.  "D'ja notice, every so often he disappears behind that sand dune?"

John says, "Probably taking a piss."

Sherlock guffaws.  "Probably wanking off!"  The boys laugh.

"Do you know what wanking off is?" Sherlock asks Molly.  John raises an eyebrow.

She whips her head around.  "Do you two?"  

They had to admit they did not.  

Molly is tired of their potty language.  She ambles over to Mycroft's sand dune.  He notices her coming and moves from behind it, sits down on the visible side, facing the water, trying not to look at her as she approaches.

She sits down right next to him.  She is so close, and she smells like the sunlight and the sand and the ocean...and the very breeze seems to be emanating from her figure.  He feels hot but freezing cold all at once.

"I know you think building sandcastles is silly," she begins.  "But it's okay to build sandcastles, as long as you put foundations of stone under them later," she says quietly.  "That's what I'm going to do."

"Do _when_?"  Mycroft knows the summer is over.  The parents are already packing up the children's things, without their knowledge.  It's why they sent them to the beach.  There will be no time to shore up a sandcastle.

He leans over, slowly, so slowly.  Maybe she won't notice.  Maybe she won't move away.  Suddenly her face turns to his.  She is blinded by the sunlight and squints at him.  Her lips are so close. His heart is pounding so fast he can't breathe.  He thinks, _If I don't kiss her, my heart my burst. I might literally die.  But she is much too young.  Inappropriate._ He forces his heart back down into its cave, and decides to save that kiss for another time, another place.

Molly raises her eyebrows in puzzlement.  She thought the boy would have kissed her by now.  Maybe that's not how it works.  Maybe she is supposed to be the one....And then she sees it, just over Mycroft's left shoulder.  The boy with an Irish accent is torturing a bird.  He has tied a stone to its leg and is poking it with a stick.

He excitedly proclaims the beauty of his project for any and all spectators.  "When it flies away, maybe its leg will rip off."  He yells loudly in his brogue. 

Mycroft turns to inspect.  Something in him rises.  A feeling - anger?  Retribution?  He needs to control it, if the situation is to end well.

Molly is all flight, all outrage, 80 pounds of female fury pounding the beach with her bare feet, arms pumping.  She has never run this fast before.  The Irish boy is unmoving, waiting for her, expecting her.  She charges him, but he doesn't even flinch in the face of her onslaught.  When she barrels him into the sand, squats atop of him and pummels his face with her open hands, he laughs and laughs, and doesn't stop laughing.  For a very long time.

She stands up, over the boy, fists on her hips, glaring down at the sight of him clutching his stomach in mirthful convulsions.  Her hair sweeps out behind her, capelike, in the increasingly strong breeze blowing in from the east.  And then she charges back to Mycroft.  "You did nothing.  You just sat there.  Were you _afraid_?" spitting out these last words of recrimination.  

Mycroft paused before answering.  "Sometimes watching and waiting is the best course of action."  He was thinking of a hostage rescue he had read about during history class, holding his book under his desk when the teacher got boring.  The Israelis had made the world think they were going to do nothing.  By the time the press found out about it, the brutal, surgical raid had been executed, over and done.   _Every_ hijacker dead.  One bullet in the head, one for the heart.  Mycroft had made a note of that - _double-tap the buggers_.  All hostages freed, except the one co-conspirator - he was "disappeared."  It was the first time he had read the word "disappear" used as a transitive verb.   _"To disappear someone."_

Molly is still catching her breath, stammering objections.  Mycroft notes the rise and fall of her chest and calculates her pulse rate.  She is furious at me.  At _me_ , even though I was not the one who tortured the poor creature.

Mycroft continues.  "If I had done anything, he might have killed the bird with one blow to its head."  She is unconvinced.  Mycroft points to the boy, who has jumped up and is gamboling along the beach, bored beyond reason.  "He had a knife in his other hand."  Of course she had not seen it.   But now, every so often a bright glint of light can be seen as the bad boy flicks the blade at nothing in particular, cutting the air itself.  

Molly stomps off, scowling.  "Still, you could have tried."

She chases after the bird, determined to catch it, transport it to her animal hospital, and patch it up.   Mycroft calls after her.  "I wouldn't do that - you'll wear the bird out.  It will die of cardiac arrhythmia!"  She ignores him.

"I'm going to find it - and I'll be gentle, you'll see."  And she disappears from view.

Mycroft reflected on how sometimes, people don't like it when you show them all you know, all that you are thinking.  Might be best to let things play themselves out, save your specialized knowledge for when the situation turns most dire.  Store it somewhere.

When the very pretty girl comes back, her leg is cut and bleeding.  Mycroft has to swallow the smallest burning sensation in his throat, like bitter coffee it tastes.  He can feel his nostrils flare, but that is harder to stop.  His fists clench and unclench.  He knows that after adolescence, he will be better able to suppress these biological markers of rage.

"He's such...he's such...he's such an _ass_!"  Molly mutters.  It's the first time she has ever cursed, and she is shocked at herself.  "He...he pushed me down, and I fell on the rocks.  And then, and then..."

"What?"  All the boys want to know.  Sherlock drops his shovel and stands up.  John comes over as well.  

"He snapped a picture!  Of my wound!"  Her face was filled with horror. Mycroft blinks hard because all he can see is himself, choking the life out of that weird little shit who pushed Molly over, squeezing the younger boy's throat until his airway collapses....

John digs around in his beach tote.  His mother has supplied him with band-aids, antiseptic, and hydrogen peroxide - he had objected to all of these - "No one needs that stuff, Mom!"  

Now he sees how handy the supplies are.  "Hold still!  Hold...still!"  As he uncaps the brown bottle, he turns to Sherlock.  "Sherlock!  Give her your hand."

"Why?"

"Give her your hand!  John nods his head towards the bottle of liquid fire he is about to spill over Molly's leg.

Sherlock finally gets it.  He holds his hand out to Molly.  

"Hold my hand."  

She hesitates.  

He musters his most gentle voice, like when he is comforting Redbeard after a scrape with the neighbor's cat.  "Hold my hand."  

She tentatively takes his hand.  

"No, really squeeze it."  

She squeezes it and purses her lips as John pours the hydrogen peroxide over her cut.  

Sherlock looks her over with fascination.  Her cut is very deep, and you can see different layers of flesh. Might leave quiet an ugly scar, and he wondered what kind of scar, how it would heal up, and when.  He also noticed how lovely her legs were, so different to his own scrawny, skeletal limbs.  She is whimpering, so he tells her to squeeze harder.  "Harder!"  

She tries hard to be brave, but lets out a mewl of discomfort and crushes Sherlock's hand until it is swollen and red.

Mycroft notices this, observes this.  The tableau seems oddly familiar.  He feels he is having deja vu.  Or...it is something that will happen.  That does not sit well with him.   _A waiter notices the tall, napping gentleman in the bespoke suit adjust his position in the burgundy leather chair and frown._

Mycroft felt the breeze again.  He looks out over the water - the ocean has turned from blue to greasy grey and with black streaks in some places.

"Storm is coming.  Blowing in from the east.  We have to go."  

John looked up and made ready to obey the older boy's order, packing up his surgical supplies and helping Molly to her feet.

"No," said Sherlock.  "We don't want to go.  Stop bossing everyone around."

"We're going NOW."  A few years ago, he would have grabbed his brother and physically dragged him away, but had long since learned that he could no longer overpower him.  Skinny as he was, the lad was one long, wiry muscle.  Mycroft would have to manipulate him.

"Redbeard is tired.  Look at the poor boy.  He needs to get out of the sun, Sherlock.  And look, you haven't brought him any water.  He can't drink fizzy pop." He didn't mention he had enough water for all of them, including the dog, in his rucksack.

Sherlock assents, reluctantly.  He would resent Mycroft for a very long time after for implying, correctly, that he had forgotten about Redbeard, the good boy, had forgotten to bring water just for him, had not noticed him panting in the heat.

The children gathered their things and wearily made their way back to the parking lot.

***

The storm, when it arrives - and it does arrive - is brutal.   They have made it all the way home and forgotten about the day's adventures.  Except Molly, who wants to go back the next day and complete her animal hospital.  But the storm is a bully and kicks all of their sandcastles to bits, even the Irish boy's.

Only one remains - the castle Mycroft had built, just over the sand dune, out of sight.  If you know quite a bit about literature, almost as much as the 14 year old who built it, you will know it is meant to resemble a certain halcyon land.  Turrets that reach to heaven.  A round table in the center of a great hall.

Camelot.  

A lone bird hops tentatively, its leg recently freed from an encumbrance.  And then, it flies away.


End file.
